For weeks, we have been waiting to see what is going to happen in Venezuela.  Thousands of U.S. troops and about 30 percent of all deployed U.S. warships are currently positioned in the Caribbean, and U.S. military aircraft have been buzzing Venezuelan airspace.  I think that President Trump would have preferred for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his minions to step aside peacefully, but it doesn’t appear that this is going to occur.  So now we are just waiting for a regime change war in Venezuela to begin, and once it officially commences Russia and China are both going to be extremely upset. On Saturday, President Trump gave us a very clear signal about what is coming when he publicly declared the entirety of Venezuela’s airspace to be closed… This was a very serious step for President Trump to take. And it came just two days after he had warned that the U.S. would start striking targets on Venezuelan soil “very soon”… The measure comes just two days after the president said he would begin bombing land-based drug trafficking targets. “The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon,” Trump told reporters. If he could have gotten rid of the Maduro regime without taking military action, President Trump would have been very happy. Apparently there was even a phone call between Trump and Maduro, but Maduro’s demand for “blanket legal protection for himself, his senior officials, and their families” was just too much… President Donald Trump has reportedly rejected Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s request for broad amnesty during a newly disclosed phone conversation last week, telling Maduro and his top advisers to drop their demands and swiftly exit Venezuela as US military pressure intensifies, which has lately included an order to halt all flights in the country’s sovereign airspace. According to people familiar with the exchange who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, Trump and Maduro discussed a sweeping amnesty plan, during which time Maduro is said to have sought blanket legal protection for himself, his senior officials, and their families. “Trump told Maduro that if he didn’t leave willingly, the US would consider other options including the use of force, according to people familiar with discussion,” WSJ wrote. I don’t know why Maduro doesn’t just leave. He could flee to a friendly country and live in luxury for the rest of his life. If he stays, he is probably going to end up dead. Of course the hawks in Washington are quite thrilled about the prospect of a new regime change war. Senator Lindsey Graham is always up for another war, and he sounds absolutely giddy about what will soon take place in Venezuela… Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Saturday praised President Trump’s mounting pressure on and military accumulation near Venezuela, as the president mulls over taking action against the South American country “very soon.” “I very much appreciate and respect the determination by President Trump to deal with the drug caliphate countries that inhabit our backyard — chief among them Venezuela,” Graham posted on the social media platform X. “For over a decade, [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro has controlled a narcoterrorist state that is poisoning America and he has created alliances with international terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.” Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government is strongly denouncing Trump’s “unjustified aggression”… Venezuela said it “denounces and condemns” the U.S. after President Donald Trump said the airspace around the South American country should be considered shuttered. Trump’s remarks are a “colonialist threat” and a “new, extravagant, illegal and unjustified aggression” against Venezuela, Caracas’ Foreign Minister Yván Gil Pinto said in a statement posted to social media on Saturday. The Maduro regime is not going to surrender power, and so now a showdown is looming. Last week, Maduro held up a sword and urged his supporters “to defend every inch of this blessed land from imperialist threat or aggression”… Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro escalated his confrontation with the United States, rallying tens of thousands of supporters across Caracas as he framed the moment as a historic battle for national survival. Brandishing a sword and dressed in camouflage fatigues, Maduro said: “We must be ready to defend every inch of this blessed land from imperialist threat or aggression, no matter where it comes from.” This isn’t going to end well. History has shown that most regime change wars have unintended consequences. But we never seem to learn. I just feel so badly for the people of Venezuela. They have been suffering for so long, and now they are just waiting for whatever comes next… U.S. fighter jets escorted a strategic bomber near the coast one day this week, and state-controlled media showed video of Venezuelan soldiers firing into the sky. A supermarket in east Caracas filled with people raiding the shelves to lay in supplies. The next day, the sky was quiet — and the capital returned to normal. Caught between the threat of a U.S. attack and a government they don’t trust to provide accurate information, Venezuelans are living moment to moment, unsure of what to expect next — a disrupting, exhausting existence that’s leading some to wish that whatever is going to happen would just happen already. Russia and China are two of Venezuela’s closest allies. And when the regime change war starts, both of them are going to be very angry. The Chinese get a tremendous amount of oil from Venezuela, and in recent years they have loaned the Venezuelans tens of billions of dollars… The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that China has extended around $60 billion in loans to Venezuela over the past two decades, much of it repaid through oil shipments — a figure still cited by both Chinese and Venezuelan officials in 2025. “China has leveraged multibillion-dollar loans and the establishment of satellite positioning and surveillance facilities to secure strategic control over Venezuela’s natural resources and critical infrastructure,” said Isaias Medina III, an Edward Mason Fellow at Harvard University and a former Venezuelan diplomat to the U.N. Security Council. It has taken a great deal of time and money for China to successfully transform Venezuela into one of their economic colonies. Do you think that the Chinese are going to be happy to see all that work go up in smoke? The Russians primarily see Venezuela as a military ally. It has been reported that there are currently hundreds of Russian troops inside the country, and not too long ago new Russian air defense systems were delivered… A senior-ranking lawmaker in Russia’s lower parliament defense committee said the Kremlin has sent new air defense systems to Venezuela as the latter comes under heightened military pressure from the US. While speaking to Russian news outlet Gazeta, Alexei Zhuravlev, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, listed several weapons that Moscow previously supplied to Caracas, including Su-30MK2 fighters and S-300VMs. He also mentioned the recent arrival of a system not publicly known to be in Venezuela’s arsenal: the Pantsir-S1. These Russian air defense systems are a serious threat. The U.S. military will need to have a plan to deal with them. Last week, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez spoke of the relationship between Russia and Venezuela as a “consolidated brotherhood”… Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez warned of “serious threats of military aggression” by the United States during a virtual meeting with Russian officials. She thanked Russia for its support, highlighting the strategic alliance as essential against international pressure. Rodriguez condemned U.S. efforts to isolate Venezuela by pressuring other countries to restrict air access. She emphasized strengthening air connectivity with Russia to boost tourism and economic ties. Rodriguez described the Russia-Venezuela relationship as a “consolidated brotherhood,” focused on cooperation and respect for international law. How will the Russians respond as their most important ally in South America gets attacked by the United States? And what will this mean for the war in Ukraine? The American people are being told that a war with Venezuela is necessary in order to stop the flow of drugs into the United States. But the fentanyl that is killing so many Americans does not come from Venezuela. The two nations that are primarily responsible for our fentanyl epidemic are China and Mexico… While some other drugs such as cocaine have been tied to Venezuela, fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid, is not a source or stopping point for the drug’s route to the United States. The precursors for fentanyl come mainly from China, and the drug is produced in Mexico before being sent across the border, mostly through legal ports of entry. Are we going to go to war with them too? Ominously, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth just warned that the U.S. has “only just begun to kill narco-terrorists”… U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared that the United States has “only just begun to kill narco-terrorists,” a blunt call to escalate direct action against cartel operatives. Hegseth reinforced the message in a separate post, vowing that the campaign against transnational drug cartels has entered a new phase. Together, the remarks underscore a growing push inside the national security establishment to treat cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and confront them with military force. In a Friday night post on social media, Secretary Hegseth bluntly and boldly stated, “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.” The secretary doubled down two minutes later with a scathing post about “fake news” media delivering “more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.” Keeping deadly narcotics out of the United States is a good goal. But should we really be using the U.S. military to do that? And what will a regime change war in Venezuela mean for our relations with the rest of the world? There are many voices that are warning that this crisis could potentially be one of the triggers that leads to the kinetic phase of World War III. If that is true, hopefully President Trump and his team will reconsider their plans before it is too late. Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com. About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today. The post This Is Why Russia And China Are Going To Be Extremely Upset When The U.S. Begins A Regime Change War In Venezuela appeared first on End Of The American Dream.